Google says LLMS.txt files won’t harm or help your search rankings

Google has up to date its information to optimizing for AI Search to make clear that having LLMS.txt information in your website gained’t hurt or assist your search rankings in Google. Google additionally made it clear that Google Search doesn’t use LLMS.txt information.

What Google wrote. I bolded the portion that’s new, the place Google wrote that Google Search doesn’t use AI textual content information, markup or Markdown information.

• “You don’t must create new machine readable information, AI textual content information, markup, or Markdown to look in Google Search (together with its generative AI capabilities), as Google Search itself doesn’t use them. Notice that Google could uncover, crawl, and index many kinds of files along with HTML on a web site: this doesn’t imply that the file is handled in a particular method.”

Google additionally added a brand new notice that reads:

• “It’s fully positive in case you resolve to create and preserve LLMS.txt information (or different comparable information) for different companies or techniques that use these information. Doing so gained’t hurt (nor assist) your visibility or rankings in Google Search, as Google Search ignores them.”

Here’s a screenshot of this part:

Dig deeper.

Why we care. There was plenty of confusion round how Google Search handles LLMS.txt information and Markdown information, in addition to different AI information. Briefly, Google Search could uncover, crawl and index them however these information should not utilized in any particular method for Google Search. It isn’t going that will help you and it gained’t damage you for having them in your website.